


Lather, Rinse, Repeat

by Willowe



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Post Defenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowe/pseuds/Willowe
Summary: Foggy wakes up, gets dressed, and goes to work.





	Lather, Rinse, Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for The Defenders finale, because I will never emotionally recover from what this show has put me through.

Foggy wakes up, gets dressed, and goes to work.

Hogarth, Benowitz, & Chao is nothing like Nelson & Murdock. It’s been months since it hurt to think about those differences, and Foggy isn’t going to let that start up again now. He focuses on his cases (sets aside one for Matt, puts it back with his own files a minute later when he remembers). He gets lunch with Marci (doesn’t think about how she used to always fight with Matt at law school) and goes out for drinks after work (never to Josie’s). He doesn’t look up at the rooftops as he walks home. He knows he won’t see the silhouette he’s looking for.

Foggy goes to sleep and the tossing and turning isn’t new (he always worried about Matt’s safety at night) but the guilt is. Maybe if he hadn’t brought Matt the suit they wouldn’t be in this position, and no reassurances from Claire that he made the right call can make Foggy feel any better.

Foggy wakes up. He reads the papers and even though he knows there won’t be any headlines about Daredevil he looks for them anyway. He goes to work (Hogarth, Benowitz, & Chao at your service) and he gives a statement to Karen after the trial. He wonders if she’s still hoping that Matt got out, or if she’s just hoping that they’ll find a body to bury. Or maybe she’s like him, not sure what to hope for, because a dead Matthew Murdock wearing the Daredevil costume could still make everything in their lives implode. He wonders if Karen thinks about that. Wonders if she hates herself for thinking of it as much as Foggy hates himself.

He tries to sleep. He dreams that Matt is alive and trying to kill him. (If Elektra came back to life why can’t Matt?) He wakes up and thinks he wouldn’t mind being killed by Matt, because at least that would mean that Matt’s alive. (He wonders if that’s how Matt felt when he was fighting Elektra.)

He goes to work (I hope you’ll think of us for all your legal needs) and his office doesn’t smell like mold and dusty outdated office equipment. He wins cases (doesn’t think about how this client can pay) and wonders if this counts as “fighting the good fight.” He walks home (doesn’t look up) and hears that there are talks of Fisk getting out on parole. He wonders who will put the Kingpin of Crime behind bars this time, because he knows it’s not going to be Hogarth, Benowitz, & Chao (he doesn’t wonder if Luke, and Jessica, and Danny could manage it without Matt).

Foggy sleeps, and when he wakes up the next morning he finds an old box of Matt’s favorite tea in the back of his cupboard when he’s looking for the coffee. Foggy stares at it for several long minutes and can’t bring himself to throw it in the garbage. He puts it back in the cupboard and leaves for work (Hogarth, Benowitz, & Chao at your service).

He passes a blind man walking with a cane on his way into work and Foggy has to stop and do a double-take to prove to his heart that that wasn’t Matt. Because Matt is dead but apparently there’s still parts of Foggy who haven’t gotten that message, that are still waiting for Matt to walk back into his life anyway.

Foggy grabs a bagel from the break room (doesn’t think about Landman & Zack) and goes back to his sparsely-decorated office (doesn’t think about colorful plastic dinosaurs). He goes home and his apartment is too empty (doesn’t think about their dorm at Columbia) and Foggy can’t be alone with his thoughts (with his guilt, with his shame, with the knowledge that his friend is dead because of him).

Foggy goes to Matt’s apartment (Foggy’s apartment now, because he pays rent on this place too, but he doesn’t think about that or why he does it). He stands in the living room (doesn’t look at the green trunk that he knows will be empty) and closes his eyes and feels the gulf stretched wide between everything he can’t sense and everything Matt would have been aware of. Foggy feels the phantom weight of the Daredevil suit in his hands (doesn’t think about the bag he handed over to Matt on that night) and wonders if they could have played this differently.

Would the story have a different ending if Foggy had stood by Daredevil instead of urging Matt to hide his demons away? Would Matt have still died, crushed by a building that was collapsed by his allies, if he had known that he was loved by others even if he couldn’t love himself?

Foggy goes home (doesn’t think about nights spent on Matt’s couch, doesn’t think about Matt bleeding out on that couch, doesn’t think about Matt at all).

He doesn’t sleep.

He reads the newspaper and the headline announces that digging has stopped at Midland Circle.

Foggy doesn’t go into work. (Hogarth, Benowitz, & Chao can bite him.)

Karen calls him and she’s crying, and Foggy does his best to comfort her (doesn’t have any idea what he’s saying, but that’s okay. Foggy is always good at comforting people). Claire tries to call and Foggy doesn’t answer the phone (doesn’t wonder if she was calling to comfort, or to be comforted). Marci calls, and when Foggy doesn’t answer she texts, and she’s seen the news and wants to know if Foggy is okay, which is ridiculous because of course Foggy is okay. This isn’t his loss, it’s their loss. Foggy doesn’t have a right to this grief, not when he’s the one that got Matt killed, not when he’s the one that let his friend down, not when he’s the one-

Foggy leaves his apartment.

There’s no grave, no headstone, no memorial for Matthew Murdock (no body either, but Foggy doesn’t think about that). But Matt loved New York more than he loved himself and this city is still here because of him (Foggy doesn’t think about how no one, except a handful of people, even know that).

Foggy stands on the rooftop of Matt’s apartment building and looks out at the city and doesn’t think about his home, or his job, or the people who are still alive because Matt isn’t. He looks out over New York and thinks about how he would trade it all to get his friend back, to apologize, to rewrite what happened so Matt never died and Foggy never failed him and none of this happened. Foggy looks at the city (doesn’t think about how Matt is out there, crushed under thousands of pounds of rubble) and hates Matt for dying, and hates himself for causing it, and hates himself for fucking up so badly that Matt could destroy himself and somehow not know that he was destroying Foggy as well.

Foggy stands on the rooftop (doesn’t wonder if Matt stood in this same spot), and closes his eyes, and hears the sounds of cars and people and sirens (doesn’t wonder if Matt heard the same sounds), and knows that Matt was never going to stop being Daredevil. He wonders how he could have known that Matt would die in that suit, and yet never realize that he was pushing Matt towards that with every single thing he did.

Foggy stands on the rooftop (doesn’t pay attention to the wetness on his cheeks) and listens to the city, and hates himself for knowing that he made the right call.

Foggy leaves (doesn’t listen for the sound of Matt’s cane, doesn’t wait for the feeling of Matt’s hand on his arm, doesn’t narrate his surroundings as he walks by). He goes home, and even though it’s still early he sleeps.

He wakes up. He doesn’t remember his dreams.

(He tells himself he didn’t dream of the Devil. But Foggy knows it’s a lie.)

He goes into work.


End file.
